Laptop storage and recharge unit

[SuppliesSaviour]

Edited due to blatant advertising. Only the forum sponsor may announce products here. If you want to advertise please mail us at advertising at edugeek.net.

 

Dos_Box

[plexer]

Dunno how much is it?

 

Is it just for static charging and security or does it have wheels?

 

Ben

[MkII]

What make is it - and how much?

 

I've seen 3 makes mentioned on these forums: Lapsafe, Bretford, and Loxit

 

I'm looking for 16 bay trolleys. The Bretford seems to be under £1000 - anyone know prices for the other two please?

[plexer]

I have loxit and Bretford ones peronsally prefer the build quality of the loxit they are solid plus the design to hold the power leads and chargers is better than the bretford.

 

Loxit I bought was a 16 bay model and was about £1k

 

Ben

[MkII]

Thanks Ben

[GrumbleDook]

I tend to go for Lapsafe since they do units in blocks of 5 ... and have designed one hell of a static storage unit for us too ...

 

Yep ... usually more expensive than Bretford or Loxit (not by much though) but a lot more robust.

 

I *have* to look at other units this year though ... the auditors have had a right go at me for only using Lapsafe for the static units ... the fact that they are the only company that do the design we need is not important apparently ... we should tell other companies about the design and get them to copy ... (I wish I was joking on this one)!!!

[john]

Auditors who'd have them, they are there to make a knightmare out of a decent system. You find a good supplier thats hard working, good support etc and then they come along and moan because they were not the cheapest in quotations, because you forgot to gain 3 quotes etc etc I know they have a place to stop dodgy dealings but at times its a PITA!

[Ric_]

We have a 30-unit LapSafe trolley which was about £2k.... VERY robust (read as weighs more than a large tank) and does the job but I don't know whether it's good value for money.

 

I've also seen a Sahara trolley... in comparison, it looked like it was made of tin foil and the power distribution was performed with two power strips held in with double-sided tape!!!

[MkII]

Hmmm - we want a classroom set of 30 - that sounds competitive then Ric_. We have a spread out campus tho' so I was thinking two 15 bay trolleys would be easier to manouver - thre are lifts to negotiate!

[plexer]

Does anyone know if there are any risk assessment/health and safety issues with pushing fully laden trolleys around as even a 15 unit one is heavy enough I'd hate to think what 30 unit one was like to maneouvre.

 

They are ok inside on smooth floors but when you get outside on conrete/slabs and some door thresholds in our place mean that you have to literally lift the wheels over them.

 

Ben

[Ric_]

Ours is heavy and is pushed around by the science technicians who have all been on man handling courses. The floor is smooth and the wheels are relatively big... once it's going I wouldn't want to be a little year 7 stood in front of it

[SuppliesSaviour]

Heres the piccy and to answer your question plexer, they are £585.00 plus £35.00 delivery (i think).

 

They say "other capacities available"

<a href=http://i84.imagethrust.com/t/578233/lapbox.jpg' alt='lapbox.jpg'>

[MkII]

Monarch LapCabbys' look the cheapest and nastiest solution:

 

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Monarch_Laptop_Charging_and_Storage_Units/prod.asp

 

These def don't look like they'd last too long

[broc]

We have 8x Bretford 16-unit trolleys now; They are pretty solid, certainly not up to Lapsafe standards but at a reasonable cost they do the job. Our oldest is almost 2 years old and nothing has fallen off yet. The combination padlocks are a pain though, as staff will keep on letting the students find out what the code is!

 

The safety aspects of moving them around should not be understated; Fully laden with 15 laptops & a printer they really need 2x staff to move them safely across anything other than absolutely flat, smooth floors. I would be very unhappy using 20 or 30 laptop units in my school. Ramps to mobile classrooms outside are no-go areas here too. I have visions of students (or staff) sitting on trolleys as they shoot down the ramp across the yard

[Irazmus]

@mark: I'll second that. We've got one (16v) and I'm rather unimpressed. The wood & metal frame is solid enough, but it seems to have been bodged in places. The locks don't work, the main door lock can turn without a key (the key actually gets stuck if you use it) and the lock on the door covering the power distribution is the wrong size so that door's always falling open. The wheels aren't screwed on either, so if you lift an end up the wheels can fall off.

Unless they've been improved greatly since this was bought ~18 months ago, I'd recommend against them.

 

30 unit trolleys are a pain to stop once they get going, I took a sizeable chunk out of a brick wall with one a few weeks ago. Luckily there were no kids around at the time, I dread to think of the consequences had there been.

[GrumbleDook]

Ooohh ... IIRC the Monarch stuff was what we used to have before I started ... we had all the laptops nicked as someone used a crowbar to just wrench panels off.

 

They went straight into the skip. The insurance company told us they would not pay for the trolley (when they eventually paid up) as we had obviously not put enough thought into the storage.

[SuppliesSaviour]

lol, i gues that answers my question

[MkII]

15 Laptop capacity trolleys

 

Bretford - £950

Lapsafe - £1700 (basic chargeline model)

Logix - £1090

[plexer]

Loxit 16 bay trolley with charging bar I paid £1005

 

Ben